


In This World, Or Another

by whatcolourmyeyes



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: (i mean sorta), Alternate Universe, Bondage, F/M, Public Sex, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tasertricks Secret Santa 2016, warning: pseudo philosophical bullshit and flagrant misuse of multiverses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 06:38:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8963509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatcolourmyeyes/pseuds/whatcolourmyeyes
Summary: This much is constant: infinity is a serpent biting its own tail, ending where it begins, a paradox of twin points on a nonlinear line. A dark nothingness.And this: he finds her. Every damn time.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eternal_Love_Song](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eternal_Love_Song/gifts).



“If,” the professor’s voice echoes and Darcy’s head snaps up right before she can properly drift off, “we allow that there are concrete alternate universes – what Lewis calls ‘worlds of possibility’ – how then do we address the issue of transworld identity? To what degree can an individual be the same person in multiple worlds, multiple opposing existences?”

Darcy likes the idea that there might be a world out there where this course wasn’t the one thing standing between her and her just-one-credit-short-of-a-master’s degree.  _ Or a world where your soulmate wasn’t L-  _ But enough of that. The seat behind her creaks audibly, like someone’s weight had shifted all at once, and Darcy starts at a sudden itching pain in her wrist. She tugs the sleeve of her sweater down, obstinately ignoring the black mark that she knows all too well.

She is equally familiar with its none-too-subtle rebukes at the disloyalty of her own thoughts.

Refreshing Facebook for the third time in the past minute, Darcy grimaces at the photograph of Jane and her newly Bonded smiling happily up at her from the screen. She swallows down the flicker of jealousy that pops up as she refreshes again and the picture reloads, nothing new rising up to take its place. Honestly, why did Darcy join all those dogspotting groups if they aren't drowning out images of all her friends finding their superhero soulmates with snapshots of simple, not-worried-about-Bonding puppies?

“Here’s the tricky part: what properties can we strip away or add to an individual while still preserving their identity as equivalent to their counterpart in another world?” Dr. Heim continues. “What do we define as the nonessential? Our gender? Our race?” A pause. “Our soulmate?”

Darcy uselessly tugs even harder on her knit green cuff, trying to will away the spark of hope-fear- _ Loki _ that flares up whenever someone mentions soulmates. The room is, for a moment, a little less silent: a quiet rustling that signifies perhaps the most student participation Darcy has observed all semester. It's not precisely taboo to question the legitimacy of soulmates, at least not in strictly academic circles, but it's still shocking.

“Are you saying that a multiverse precludes the absoluteness of a single soulmate?”

The voice cuts through the lecture hall, and Darcy has to stop herself from looking up from her laptop. It’s not  _ him _ , it can’t be: Thor has assured her that his brother is locked up in a galaxy far, far away, and besides, Darcy rationalizes, this voice isn’t deep enough, or accented enough. Yet it drips with an all-too-familiar disdain.

“Across an infinity of worlds, every possibility must eventually be expressed,” Dr. Heim replies slowly, seeming surprised that a student is actually engaging in the discussion. “It's statistically unavoidable.”

“You echo the old theorem of monkeys writing Shakespeare on typewriters. In an infinity, every possible outcome will  _ almost surely _ be realized, yes. But infinity is never-ending, not all-encompassing.” Darcy’s wrist fucking  _ aches _ now, like the name on her skin is on fire, and she all at once hates whoever that voice belongs to. “There exists the however minute possibility that an individual  _ could _ always have the same soulmate… that he finds her every time.”

The professor is shaking her head. 

“The likelihood that in an infinite sequence of worlds... well, consider the probabilities of  _ all _ those worlds being similar enough that circumstances could consistently allow the same result.” Lecture is almost over, the room rumbling with the sound of students packing their bags. “Probabilities would pile upon probabilities until that minute possibility you speak of is a dead end: a black hole.”

The clock strikes eleven and everyone rises to exit the lecture hall.

_ A black hole. _

Darcy’s hands tremble for a moment, and then she’s shoving her laptop into a faded blue messenger bag and rushing out of the room, oblivious to the pair of (blue-brown-green) eyes that flicker as they lock on her retreating back, the gaze that flits to her covered wrist.

\--

This much is constant: infinity is a serpent biting its own tail, ending where it begins, a paradox of twin points on a nonlinear line. A dark nothingness.

And this: he finds her. Every damn time.

\--

Under stars that are different-but-the-same, they are lying side by side, hands just shy of touching as they stare up at the night sky.

“There are more worlds out there,” Loki says matter-of-factly.

He's sixteen and thinks he knows everything. Darcy is only two months younger, and of course she believes him, too.

“Alternate universes,” Loki adds, in a whisper (like it's a secret, like he can't lose the emboldening feeling of those blue eyes staring up at him like he is _ everything _ ). He turns to face her, eyes flashing with something hungry. “Do you ever think about it? All the different ways we meet?”

Darcy doesn't know how to say that the way he looks at her, her entire body _sings_ – like the entire universe is a jigsaw puzzle and they're the last two pieces, all of their ragged edges fitting together. She doesn't say that she would fall for him no matter what, that she could melt in the space between his lips until he has consumed her entirely. She would let him, she thinks.

Loki rolls over, caging her in between lean forearms.

“Well? How about it?” he asks coolly, smirking when he shifts closer and Darcy’s eyes drop to his mouth.

“What if- what if you can't find me?”

She's only saying it to be contrary, except…

“I will always find you,” Loki promises readily, and the feeling coiling up in Darcy’s chest releases all at once.

“I want to stay in this world,” she admits, blushing when Loki tilts his head at her curiously.

“I want all of them.”

(He says this, too, under another sky; in another world, one where it scares her.)

“Tell me,” Darcy challenges him, a mischievous glint in her eyes, and then she is laughingly swallowing up each possibility as he utters it, lips brushing away world after world until Loki gives in and kisses her properly.

\--

Darcy’s soulmark still aches, and her pulse is rabbit-fast and uneven: it's a familiar sensation, her entire body thrumming like a live wire – a dulled sense of anticipation, like the emotion doesn't quite belong to her. The hallways should be deserted by now, but there's a pair of footsteps behind her, clicking against the tiled floor.

She should probably phone Jane, or SHIELD.

She doesn’t.

“I know you're following me,” Darcy bites out, not sounding half as angry as she'd like.

_ He always finds her. _

“I'm sor-”

“You're not.”

An exhale. He isn't.

“Please turn around. You know it's me, after all.”

_ You know it's inevitable. _

“No.”

Darcy can be stubborn to a fault, too. And she wants to make him wait just a little longer, even if she knows he can feel the falseness in her words, just like she feels the insincerity in his.

(And maybe she's scared that she can't do this again, can't see her soulmate and still reject him.)

“Darcy.”

His voice sounds right, finally, his illusions dropping away for her, and  _ fuck it _ , she spins to look at him, to catch the last of his golden seidr fading around him.

“What  _ took _ you so long?” she bursts out, because he's a god, dammit, and even with all Jane's meddling and all the barriers between them  _ he should have come for her.  _  The answering smile she gets could probably power a small planet.

“Norns, I love you.” A murmur, barely loud enough to hear, but Darcy is sinking, Loki’s arms wrapping around her and cradling her like she is something precious. Long, pale fingers wrap around the burning mark on her wrist. “I had a rather far way to go,” Loki whispers seriously, lips brushing the shell of her ear. “The distance of worlds, even.”

Darcy tries to resist leaning into his touch, but for the first time in weeks her mark is blessedly quiet, and she can't help melting into him.

“So, what, are we still outrunning probability?” she grumbles, lifting her eyes and drinking in that face she's seen too much of, but never when she needed him,  never right there where she could _ touch _ . “Bonnie and Clyde style? Thelma and Louise? Butch Cassidy and mmph-”

Loki kisses her like at any moment she could disappear, capturing both her wrists in one hand and tugging her close. His teeth drag stinging paths down her neck as he marks that pale expanse of skin, murmuring promises against a trail of blue veins, the delicate sweep of her collarbone: “We are not a tragedy.”

Darcy’s hands grapple at the stupidly complicated buckles at the front of his leather coat.

“Please,” she whimpers, and then she's flush against him, trapped between the wall and unrelenting lean muscle.

“I'm right here. I won't let you fall.” Loki has insinuated one thigh between her legs, and Darcy lets out a small gasp as she shifts forward and feels a sudden bolt of pleasure. “Go on, sweetheart.” She buries her face in his shoulder as her hips buck again and again; she's already embarrassingly close and it's not a thing, it  _ isn't _ , but then he calls her ‘sweetheart’ again and she's coming, her head falling back to rest against the cool plaster wall.

Loki grinds his hips into hers, keeping her pressed against the wall as he rucks up her sleeve, pressing kisses to the name spelled across her wrist (because of course he does, the possessive ass). It's all too much, too fast, and Darcy doesn't want to stop, even when she hears voices from further down the hall, setting her heart racing. Her legs tighten around Loki’s hips as he raises her hands over her head with a hushed “Don't move,” and then she’s falling but not, their surroundings blurring for a moment before Darcy blinks and finds herself lying on her bed back at her apartment.

Loki steps away and Darcy flushes at the needy mewl she makes, but he only shrugs off his coat with a roll of his shoulders, and descends back onto the bed with feline grace, recapturing her lips in a kiss. A faint growl, and Loki is tugging Darcy’s sweater over her head, the black lace below cutting shapes against her fair skin. Loki somehow takes care of their pants (and Darcy liked those jeans, so he better not have vanished them somewhere they can't be unvanished), and  _ finally _ they're touching,  Darcy’s soulmark buzzing with energy. Loki stretches out his arm and Darcy catches sight of her own name, black and crisp against the white bedspread.

Her hands, still tangled up in her sleeves, scramble for something to hold onto as Loki rolls his hips and she chokes out a gasp.

“Alright, sweetheart?”

“Please,” she repeats, and then his cock is pushing into her, a blunt pressure that makes her eyes fall shut and her mouth open in a silent moan. Her hands lift off the bed for a moment and Loki stops moving, cruelly withholding anything more until her wrists are back above her head, keeping still. “Mean,” she mumbles sulkily, but then he laughs and presses smiling lips to hers, driving his hips deeper until she's perfectly, unbearably  _ full _ .

“Can you come for me again?” he asks, like he already knows the answer: that Darcy could just give and give and give if he was the one doing the taking. “You can do that for me, can't you, sweetheart?” He does something wicked with the next thrust, and Darcy arches against the mattress.

“You're such a  _ dick _ ,” she answers, and what she means is: yes. She means: kiss me again, you fool. She means: I love you.

Darcy’s next moans are lost in the wet slide of her lips against his. Loki licks into her mouth, cataloguing the softness of her bottom lip, the hot press of her tongue against his, as he maintains a steady, punishing rhythm. His movements are getting sloppier as he nears his own climax, and with one last brutal thrust, he bites down on her shoulder and Darcy clenches impossibly tightly around him. It comes so fast she barely realizes, fireworks going off behind her eyes and her core pulsing erratically as Loki’s cock, buried to the hilt, releases inside her.

He whispers endearments into her hair as he rides out his orgasm, pulse after pulse of cum coating her walls before his hips finally go still. Darcy’s soulmark has gone quiet again, and she struggles with the sweater still trapping her arms before Loki whisks it away and pulls her closer.

“All those other worlds,” she whispers, voice hazey in the afterglow. “Tell me about them.”

Loki sighs as her fingers run through his hair aimlessly. Darcy has her head pressed to his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat, the rumble of his voice when he speaks.

“Well, I rather like this one.”

\--

_ finis. _

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I haven't actually published fic in like a year bc I'm the worst so... I may have also picked the most overambitious plot bunny running through my head so hopefully this somewhat fits the bill ♡ Basically this was a flimsy excuse to practice writing smut whoops.  
> Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to all my lovelies reading this!!!


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